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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22961548">ballet on ice</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/batman/pseuds/batman'>batman</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCT (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, M/M, vague references to "past" relationships</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 12:55:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,510</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22961548</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/batman/pseuds/batman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten hasn't been able to dance in four years, now, which is four years too long to have been alive anyway.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mark Lee/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>ballet on ice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamyska/gifts">kamyska</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>for dearest kam, who brightened up all of february with our evening together in paris, so naturally i had to thank her by giving her post-apocalyptic soft angst. I'M BATMAN, BEING EXTRA AND ANGSTY IS IN THE JOB DESCRIPTION</p><p>warnings for mentions of a severe injury, and vague there/not-there allusions to death.</p><p>title from the national's "fake empire".</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ten hasn't been able to dance in four years, now, which is four years too long to have been alive anyway. The first snow of the year means nothing to him apart from a reminder that the world is not gifted at anything so much as it is gifted at spinning. At night he dreams his shoulders are lithe enough, again, to spin it on his back. The transparent marble of it, the blues of the ocean and the burnt resilient green of the land swirling in its infinite core, and the whole of it, rolling on the planes of his back as he ducks, straightens up, spins on his toes. In this dream, he is barefoot, and there has never been a splint on his knee. </p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>The sky turns red before the first snow, every time. An unnatural quietness in the air, like the world is learning how to hold its breath again and hasn't quite understood how, yet. He sometimes feels like it'll choke again, coughing up the ocean like Taeyong had five years ago, when Ten had really thought him to be dead. Cough, cough, choke, heave. The labour of giving the world back to itself. The sky giving the snow back to the rivers, red, quiet, and repenting. </p><p>He also feels, sometimes, that it's going to be Mark who'll end up choking. He has something threaded into him that knows to wake him up before the first snow, without fail, every year. Ten will feel him shift, stir awake, then make his way over to the window, unhurried. Pull away the curtains that protect them from the poisonous daylight, and stare out at the sky, holding his breath. </p><p>Ten always expects him to say something, but he never does. Closes the curtains again and slips back under the covers, hand cold on Ten's sternum from where it was pressed against the window pane. </p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Five years ago, when Taeyong swallowed the entire ocean and spit it back up on Ten's ripped jeans, breath flaying his salt-ruined throat with a sort of rattle Ten never wants to hear again in his life, the marble of the world slipped off his back and came crashing to the inky black floor of the universe. The flood that day was the least of it, and couldn't be called a beginning when the <em> beginning </em>had been so many decades coming. But Ten, who prided himself on keeping that marble safe, could only see how he— they— had failed the day the water hit them.  </p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Four years ago, Ten shattered his knee falling out of a tree. It broke into so many pieces that the hospitals which were barely getting back on their own feet only had knives and apologies to offer. </p><p>Morphine was rationed; one evening, he found himself crying silent tears into his pillow, biting it, wanting nothing more than to die. That day Mark Lee was on volunteer duty, and had decided to bring his guitar along.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>The clock on the floor says it's something past three; they have a few hours left before sunrise. Mark is up again, getting dressed this time, a new sort of brightness to his movements that only sparks up this time of the year. The snow means nothing to Ten, but for Mark, it's the only thing that keeps him going. It's only since last year that they've been allowed to go out in it— and the rain— but Ten knows that if it weren't for him, Mark would've run out into it the very first year, when it was still leaking death and burning skin clean off the flesh. The same way Ten flinches from the water because he can still see it spilling from between Taeyong's purple lips, Mark loves the snow more fiercely than he has ever loved anything else save Ten— that is to say, Ten and the snow both come second only to Youngho. There is nothing quite like loving someone who's lost to you; Ten would know. Nothing more desolate, and so, nothing prouder. </p><p><em> I know he's nearby, </em> Mark's always said. <em> I just know it. One day he'll come stomping through all this snow. Just you wait. He's taller than you, I think. You'll hate that. </em></p><p>Ten is as much in love with Mark as he's ever been with anyone— that is to say, he's never been able to rank the things he loves. He doesn't know if Taeyong is nearby, and still doesn't know how they lost each other, but Taeyong is Taeyong, and Mark is Mark, and Ten's shattered kneecap is Ten's shattered kneecap. </p><p>Four years too many is four years too many.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>The snow has fallen so thick from between midnight to three, that he could go calf-deep in it already, and it hasn't yet stopped. The flakes come down slow and unhurried, not melting when they reach the sill, instead collecting in translucent piles, curving away from the edges of the panes. Ten traces the slope with his fingers, leaving a trail of condensation behind, then starts as he feels a touch on his shoulders. Heavy, thick, warm. Grabs the edges of the coat and smiles, turns around to face Mark. </p><p>They have a few hours until the sun starts coming up and they have to go back inside, but Mark isn't everyone's angel for nothing. He knows that upstairs and downstairs in their little building, others are waking up too, rushing to their windows to check for the snow and then smiling to themselves. </p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Mark is everyone's angel, but Ten likes to think he was first. That evening, he had bit into his pillow, saliva slipping out the widened corners of his mouth and dampening the rough fabric of the case, tears doing the same. He was too proud to beg for relief, and he wouldn't have thought of it anyway; there had been screams down the hall for more than half the day, and if he had let the marble break the least he could do was spill his blood to put it back together.</p><p>The door to his room had opened, careful footsteps, and then the slight creaking of the only bed besides his. He'd stayed still, wondering if it was yet another hurried but sympathetic nurse, come to give him lukewarm water and a pat on the head. <em> Brave boy. </em></p><p><em> Thanks, </em> he'd heard instead, an unfamiliar voice, unsteady. <em> Your dose wasn't wasted. I promise. </em></p><p>Mark had decided to bring his guitar that day, to sing to the children. Ten heard him working the faulty zip on his case, pulling it out. He was still biting his pillow when the strings first rang out into the silence of the room. </p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>They share a greenhouse between four buildings, with paths covered in tarpaulin leading directly inside its glass walls. Inside, it's hard to tell what's actually growing. Tomatoes here and daisies there, chairs always having to be wiped down, droplets running down the large panes. There's something strange it all does to the quality of sound; it's muffled, yes, but also wavers as if passing through each individual leaf, testing thicknesses and growth and the red bloom of the flowers, the way notes sound different on the rims of differently-filled glasses. </p><p>Ten's always wanted to hear Mark play in a hall, be granted all the grandness he deserves. Speakers and a microphone and thundering applause. But Mark— all Mark has ever wanted is his guitar, his calloused fingers, and someone to sing with him. <em> It's where I feel at home, </em> he says. <em> I mean, it's about the hands. I mean, it's about the singing. </em></p><p>Dongyoung is already waiting for them, frail fingers trailing over the rosebuds studding the mess of green so dark against his pale skin. He smiles at them, fragile and relieved, even though they'd seen each other just a couple of days ago. It's always like that, something they're all trying to unlearn now that things are getting— Ten is afraid to use the word <em> better, </em> but Mark, who has the audacity to wait for Youngho and a real spring and the dog who ran away when he was ten years old, Mark isn't afraid to say it. <em> Better day by day. It's our destiny to rebuild. We've rebuilt in the past and we'll do it again. </em></p><p>There are so many things to unlearn. Internet connections still go weak sometimes, and flights are rare. They all tell themselves that it's a long way to go before they can write anyone— or anything— off for good, that if Taeyong hasn't called it's because he's in a no-coverage area, not under the ocean that tried to take him from Ten once. But they hold on to the ones they have before their eyes as if they'll lose them overnight; Dongyoung's smile holds a sort of desperate relief even though they met on Monday. Curled up in a chair by some saplings is Jungwoo, asleep, head leaning his awkwardly-bent arm. </p><p>They don't really greet each other anymore, because the old greetings are too sure of themselves, and in this new world, they've yet to invent a word for <em> oh, thank God, you're still here. </em>Until then, they smile.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>In this new world, four years ago, Mark sang to Ten all night, half-thanks, half-apology. Ten never lifted his face from the pillow, never learned what Mark's face looked like. Spent the next week leaning on his walker, grunting and wincing and almost sobbing, looking for him around the lonely corridors of the hospital. Found him days later in the children's ward, squeaky strings and unsteady voice, but a smile so bright and forgiving, it seemed like Ten's knee would heal all on its own out of shame.</p><p>It never did, but a walker progressed to a cane, a cane to a splint, a splint to ridiculous scarring that Taeyong would've laughed at if he hadn't gone missing the week before Ten fell out of that tree. Then Ten revealed to Mark that he could sing.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>It still hurts when winter comes. There is only winter, cold and bitter, and summer, hot and blazing. They don't get a lot of respite in the summers, spend them under tinted panes and thin sheets, green, purple, red sunlight filtering in through the paper pasted to the windows. In the winters they can breathe, and the little cities come alive with lanterns and flares and music. Mark comes alive, singing on makeshift stages and joining other groups, guitar strung around his neck, walking down the street, turning amused heads. </p><p>Ten's knee hurts when winter comes, and he grows cold and bitter, retreating into himself and what he could salvage from his old performance videos. Winters are for long dreams, and waking up hating the world save for Mark, whose rough messy curls against the pillow are the only good thing in it. The only good thing in it. </p><p>Mark has had a tradition, since even before it all happened— always sing the day of the first snow. He used to do it with his mother, then with Youngho, never selfish about sharing it. <em> It's about the singing. It's about the hands. You know? </em>Ten, who kept his dance as a presentation of himself to others, and then as his way of keeping the world spinning on his shoulders, marvelled at first. At the way Mark would sing everything from ballads to lullabies to jingles from commercials that made children laugh, at the way he wasn't afraid to let a tear slip out even as he sang something bright and merry about a Christmas that had long been lost to them all, shaking his head and wiping it away as if it was a lock of hair getting in his vision. </p><p>The greenhouse is as full as it will be today, with three of them on volunteer duty at the development offices and another two down sick, so Mark doesn't take long setting up in his place, perching on the back of a chair, legs resting on the seat. Behind him is one clear large pane that shows only snow and sky. It's still the same red, still asking forgiveness as if it were apologising, precisely, to Mark. He waves it off the way he always has, and poses his guitar on his lap. </p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>The first year, Ten was too miserable to join, even though he'd already been singing with Mark. Angry and hurt and tired, he couldn't stand seeing someone still willing to take the world as it was. <em> Take it as it is, </em> Taeyong always used to say, before he left Ten to fend for himself against the uncaring surges of the universe. <em> It's the only one we have. </em></p><p>The second year, he came down to the greenhouse, stood leaning against the doorframe, cold, shivering, tears hovering on the tips of his lashes as Mark sang to everyone. Old English songs and then Korean ones, even stilted French that mostly trailed off into humming. </p><p>The third year, when they said it was safe to touch the snow, Mark had gone running out, not even laughing or shouting, but just running, as fast as he could. Out the apartment and down the stairs, feet nearly slipping over the edges more than once while Ten followed as fast as his knee let him. Main doors of the building flung open, red repenting sky, and Mark, stumbling onto the skeletal grass, clothes already damp. He'd laid down on the bare ground, barely an inch of snow, and cried like something had been taken from him, which it had. </p><p>That year, last year, Ten started singing with him.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Taeyong went missing a week before Ten shattered his knee. He'd— been there one day, and then not, the next. Yes, there had been an earthquake between the two, but that was hardly of consequence to Ten, to whom nothing mattered anymore but Taeyong. He'd driven everyone mad asking, knocking on the same doors, yelling at the same people. He'd still been looking, the day he climbed into that tree.</p><p>Ten doesn't remember why he climbed into that tree. He just remembers falling out. He doesn't remember having Taeyong, either. Just remembers losing him.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Ten doesn't mention Taeyong. Mark keeps Youngho alive in his words. He loves Ten like snow, but loves Youngho like the promise of snow, which is so much more difficult to rip away from anyone.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>The glass is misting up with their collective breathing, just on this side of stuffy but still comfortable. When Mark starts off, his voice is unsteady as always. He smiles and apologises, smiles again as they all laugh it off. For Ten he is the only one in the greenhouse, solitary against the snow, the same angel who came to his room the day his own bones were tearing his flesh to shreds for dropping the marble. Until he met Mark, he thought it was for dropping the marble. </p><p>Mark's voice steadies; he looks up at Ten.</p><p>Ten takes a breath, and joins.</p>
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